[X3TC] Neewbie in need of help

[ajime]

Kinda costly to maintain BHS from enroaching Xenon's since it's a favourite xenon migration spot. I usually maintained 2 destroyers for each north and south gate since i have a wheat farm in there and even then there's a fair share of freighters being shot down especially when those m2 are are distracted in OOS via xenon n's and get blown up by Q's. Its fine if you're in system all day long though which i sometimes do since i have a personal EQD watching the south gate. Though i like the challange of taking advantage of the huge cahoona bakeries to power up my factories.

As a tip...what's good for the Xenon is good for you.

Protect the gates with a mixed fleet, so the Qs get busy blowing up your M5s until your destroyers get around to them.

yeah. im just super lazy to buy ships. most of them i salvage off from pirates except when i really need a TM for hauling critical stuff. they rarely bail on me / die too quickly nowadays so im kinda low in fighter stock.

Incidentally, TMs are an excellent target for early training of marines, if that holds any interest for you. They are weakly armed and have only two decks, so you can train green marines and operate with minimal resources on your part (a fighter and a TP are enough.) (Apologies if this is all stuff you already know. )

yeah. Been farming chokaro everytime i need to add new freighters to.carry rocks from near ocracoke to avarice

[Star Fall]

Hahaha my apologies for taking so long to reply, was busy atm with some stuff and with warframe lol, I usually take breakes from X3TC and certain other games as to not get tired and annoyed of it.

Tbh these pirate attack are getting fun, I like it when a group of them attacks one of my traders then my busters,Nova's or Eclipses(which are escorts) annihilate them in seconds. I have a Titan,Boreas and Python now in Black hole sun to defend that sector from the xenon invasions which is fun,My 3 frigates are patrolling the sectors through which my traders fly through.I never knew that once you start getting a hold on the trading part of the game would be such fun.

How do you paste someone else's words and then respond to it like you guys do,the reason is I like to be specific and not leave people confused about what I'm talking about.

Greetings from the Ruin

[Triaxx2]

Quote button on the top right of a post.

Star Fall: Or you can do it like this with the username at the start, since multi-quotes on this forum are a bit frustrating.

Also the only thing more than stopping piracy, is actually being a pirate.

[RAVEN.myst]

Also the only thing more than stopping piracy, is actually being a pirate.

Yarrrrrr, matey!

[Star Fall]

I'm planning on getting me the following ATF ships through BOARDING:

Aegir
Tyr
Vali

I'm targeting the Vali first because I hear that Corvettes are way easier than the larger ships,I can't remember if I said this before but the only problem for me is to get one of those Vali's to split from the group,I have seen they travel in 5 or 6, do any of you have idea's ?

I will have a cobra and full star marines ready to follow your instructions,here we go Pirating fellow brothers and sisters

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm planning on getting me the following ATF ships through BOARDING:

Aegir
Tyr
Vali

I'm targeting the Vali first because I hear that Corvettes are way easier than the larger ships,I can't remember if I said this before but the only problem for me is to get one of those Vali's to split from the group,I have seen they travel in 5 or 6, do any of you have idea's ?

I will have a cobra and full star marines ready to follow your instructions,here we go Pirating fellow brothers and sisters

My solution is to blow up everything else until the group is down to the ship I want to board.

[AleksMain]

I think, that Vali is too small to be useful.


My marines board ships not less than M7 usually.


M6 class ship not worth efforts of boarding crew.


Ships may only carry a limited number of marines and M6 ships can have maximum boarding crew 8 (in the X3:AP).


So, you will be able to send 1.5 (one and half) boarding pods only.

Also you will be able to destroy boarded M6 ship easy.


About tactic for fight against group of ships:

1. Some ships are faster, than other ships in the group.

2. Faster ships are weak in most cases and can be destroyed easy.

3. So, start from distance 12-15 km or more (it is dependent from number of the ships in the group).

4. Launch some Flail Barrage Missiles to each target to destroy them (each 5,000 x 8=40 K damage, so for M3 class target you need 3-4 missiles, for example).

5. Run from group and repeat step 4, if it is necessary.

6. If fastest board-able ship is far from other ships but is in the distance 12-15 km from you, then you can start boarding process. Usually it is far from any gates and far from center of the sector, so RRF can't interrupt boarding.

7. After boarding transfer jump-drive, energy cells for jump to boarded ship and get back marines, send boarded ship in the other sector.

8. If you have enough boarding pods, missiles and you see yet one available for boarding ship, then you can repeat boarding process (run and repeat), while one of your M5 ships transport new jump drive for your Cobra.

P.S.
Some Carriers can have small ships (up to M6) inside.
I destroy them before boarding.
When you hit Carrier, owned by it ships will appear around to be destroyed.

[jlehtone]

I think, that Vali is too small to be useful.

M6 class ship not worth efforts of boarding crew.

Hyperion Vanguard. Some praise it. Personally, I have had no love for it from the day the Emperor's yacht fell on my hands for the first time on X3R (yet my PHQ then made dozens of copies). Same story in X3AP; show that it can be taken and make couple copies, but forget them somewhere.

A trophy is a trophy.


The ugly part of the X3AP Hype was that it was shooting with many turrets and resorted to suicidal missiles too. The Terran/ATF M6's are not much better.

What I did with the Hype was buying a Griffon and loading it with IonD's. After relatively short time next to the Hype it had no more annoying armament. The downside is that it was down to one small shield. Small shields recharge quickly and you cannot IonD them while your marines are still outside. Wasps.


Terran ships are harder to board than the Commonwealth. If they have Hull polarization, Firewall and Sentry Lasers, the chances go down. Therefore, scan ships first before choosing your target.

Did I mention that Griffon with IonD's can erase those pesky softwares?


Add Terran Kyoto and ATF Valhalla to the ToDo list.
[EDIT] Sorry, Valhalla and Kyoto are in X3AP.
The only ship in X3TC that can carry larger than M3 ships is Goner Aran.
You can board multiple Aran's in X3TC, IIRC.

Griffon is in X3TC, but only as a plot reward. Centaur or Eclipse (or larger Pirate ships) might cut it as IonD-platform. I did fail to fry Hype with Eclipse.

Boarding details were refined between X3TC and X3AP. Our advice (like mine) might come from X3AP and be thus off the mark.

Beware the Internet.

[RAVEN.myst]

Personally, I think there's plenty of reason to board M6s: training for your marines. So go right ahead The tips given by both previous commentators are all good. As a novice boarder (boardist?), I recommend that you go with the Ion Disruptor method for the time being, while you learn the ropes, and while you are giving experience to your marines. Of course, the downside of this is that you will not have any of the rather hard-to-get Terran weapons on that ship - but even if you board without frying them off, the chances of keeping any are pretty low in any case.

Good hunting!

[Triaxx2]

I recommend against Ion Disruptors unless you're facing the anti-boarding enhancements, such as Internal Sentry Lasers or Hull Plating. Chances are you'll get better loot and have better odds of not accidentally killing your marines just by managing the shields with your own guns.

On the other hand, being in an M7M makes life easier. Basically you want to calculate a barrage of Hammers to hit them just hard enough to reduce the shields to around 10-15%. Then manually launch flails as they turn to follow. This will take some practice but basically you want them following and to be shooting your missiles directly up their nose. Once you have enough missiles in the air to knock them below the right amount, you basically launch marines then. The system will tell you you can't but keep trying. If you do a bit of hull damage don't worry over much. But once the marines launch, keep firing on a measured pace to keep the shields down.

This advice only works in TC. In AP the AI was altered to use missile defense on forward turrets, while it wasn't able to do so in TC, so firing directly at the front of the ship would allow your marines to slip in with the Flails.

M6's are excellent boarding practice for the survivors of the attempts. Not so much for the ones KIA but it's cheaper than sending them for training and will raise their fighting skills. Alternately, take on TM's, which are also fairly small in decks but tend to be a bit easier on marines than M6's.

[RAVEN.myst]

I recommend against Ion Disruptors unless you're facing the anti-boarding enhancements, such as Internal Sentry Lasers or Hull Plating. Chances are you'll get better loot and have better odds of not accidentally killing your marines just by managing the shields with your own guns.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. Just to clarify: I'm not advocating shield-management with IonDs (as Triaxx2 points out, that's a quick way to kill marines in pods, for one thing), but *only* to fry off turrets and defensive subsystems, such as Hull Polarising Device (which on ATF ships makes them REALLY tough to penetrate), Advanced Firewall Software, and Internal Sentry Lasers. Once your marines are sufficiently trained, they will be able to overcome such countermeasures.

[Triaxx2]

Ah, yeah. Actually I think ATF ships are all but unbreachable with HPD on board.

IonD will also kill free floating marines with frightening effciency, since it'll arcc between them. Been there, done that, seen the little pops worth millions of credits.

[Honved]

Basically, if a ship has all of those defensive systems, either it's something rare and special for it to be worth the tedious Ion-D treatment, or else it's easier to simply look for another target. One scan should tell you whether the target is going to need such special treatment or not.

One should prferably have a secondary weapon on another firing circuit that does controllable damage (I like PRGs against smaller targets due to high bullet speed and limited "per bullet" damage, so there's not a lot of potential damage enroute after you stop firing), so you can suppress shields after launching your marines, without fear of frying them in the process.

The difference between "spacewalk" boarding and using an M7M with boarding pods is one of night and day. I spent the better part of a day reloading boarding attempts on an M7 with my TP and M6 (over 50 tries before I manged to successfullly board, breach, clear, and capture it), but captured an M7 on my first attempt with boarding pods. The pods are easier to land on the target from a safer distance, plus give a bonus to hull penetration.

[Alan Phipps]

"I spent the better part of a day reloading boarding attempts on an M7 with my TP and M6 (over 50 tries before I manged to successfullly board, breach, clear, and capture it), but captured an M7 on my first attempt with boarding pods."

Which eventual success was the more satisfying though? It is sometimes worth the time and bother spent on an operation with a remote chance of success, but not every time maybe.

I still find M6 spacewalk boarding very satisfying when you get it right.

[Timsup2nothin]

"I spent the better part of a day reloading boarding attempts on an M7 with my TP and M6 (over 50 tries before I manged to successfullly board, breach, clear, and capture it), but captured an M7 on my first attempt with boarding pods."

Which eventual success was the more satisfying though? It is sometimes worth the time and bother spent on an operation with a remote chance of success, but not every time maybe.

I still find M6 spacewalk boarding very satisfying when you get it right.

Personally, I find "reload boarding" to not be very satisfying no matter what particular details are in the process.

[Triaxx2]

Space Walk Boarding is the sort of thing I save specifically for M6's and TM's.

Saving when boarding in my experience should be done when they tell you they've taken a deck. I believe it changed to rolling all the dice when they start breaching in AP, so there's no point there.

[jlehtone]

Personally, I find "reload boarding" to not be very satisfying no matter what particular details are in the process.

Would you agree that all possible paths (save incredible luck) to I, Xenon I, are somewhat tedious?

Considering the I is just a ship like the rest.

[Timsup2nothin]

Personally, I find "reload boarding" to not be very satisfying no matter what particular details are in the process.

Would you agree that all possible paths (save incredible luck) to I, Xenon I, are somewhat tedious?

Considering the I is just a ship like the rest.

I dunno. I associate tedium with reloading because it is effectively just doing the same thing over and over and hoping it goes better. I will generally save before I try a really hard boarding op. If I clearly screw it up somehow I might try it a second time, but generally if it just doesn't go well I will reload and go do something else. When the hard boarding op goes well I'm usually too happy to recognize anything tedious about it.

[Bill Huntington]

Boarding the Xenon is made unnaturally hard by the programmers. They gave us a challenge. Even if you do everything exactly right you still fail much of time boarding the Xenon capitals. If you fail you've lost 20+ marines that you've trained for game days to 4 x 100.

Usually I justify repeated boarding attempts because I've done something wrong, or figure out a better way to do it. But it's just necessary with your excellent marines and Xenon capitals. The alternative is not to do it.

[Timsup2nothin]

Boarding the Xenon is made unnaturally hard by the programmers. The gave us a challenge. Even if you do everything exactly right you still fail much of time boarding the Xenon capitals. If you fail you've lost 20+ marines that you've trained for game days to 4 x 100.

Usually I justify repeated boarding attempts because I've done something wrong, or figure out a better way to do it. But it's just necessary with your excellent marines and Xenon capitals. The alternative is not to do it.

Like I said, I do save before making the attempt, and will reload if it doesn't work. I just go do something else when I reload rather than just doing the same thing and hoping it turns out differently.